Andy Slaughter – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2015-11-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent representations his Department has made to the Israeli government on the Children in Military Custody report, funded by his Department, which was published in June 2012.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

Officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv have held roundtable meetings with Israeli officials to discuss the Children in Military Custody report, most recently on 19 May. Since the publication of the report, there has been some progress on the issue of children held in military detention. This includes piloting of sending summons instead of carrying out night-time arrests, changes to standard operating procedures on methods of restraint, and steps to reduce the amount of time a child can be detained before seeing a judge. There has also been a reduction in the use of solitary confinement and an increase in the use of Arabic to give notifications of arrest. Officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv continue to push for further progress with Israeli officials. On 27 August, our Ambassador to Tel Aviv lobbied the Israeli Military Advocate General on Children in Detention where the issue of child detention was discussed.